scholarly journals Embracing 3D Printing

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (08) ◽  
pp. 42-45
Author(s):  
Mike Vasquez

This article reviews the challenges for companies while adopting three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. A big challenge for companies figuring out whether they need to invest in 3-D printing is the different types of printing systems available in the market. At a high level, there are seven different families of 3-D printing processes. Each of the seven technologies is differentiated by the materials used and how the materials are fused together to create three-dimensional objects. Another barrier is that most companies have not yet found it viable to put the processes in place to incorporate the change in design, engineering, and manufacturing production that is required. Not only capital funds are needed to purchase machines, but to effectively use the technology to create a sellable product, one also needs to have a targeted product line and clear vision of the ways that 3-D printing can help lower material costs, save energy, and simplify manufacturing and assembly.

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1113-1129
Author(s):  
Lai Jiang ◽  
Xiaobo Peng ◽  
Daniel Walczyk

Purpose This paper aims to summarize the up-to-date research performed on combinations of various biofibers and resin systems used in different three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies, including powder-based, material extrusion, solid-sheet and liquid-based systems. Detailed information about each process, including materials used and process design, are described, with the resultant products’ mechanical properties compared with those of 3D-printed parts produced from pure resin or different material combinations. In most processes introduced in this paper, biofibers are beneficial in improving the mechanical properties of 3D-printed parts and the biodegradability of the parts made using these green materials is also greatly improved. However, research on 3D printing of biofiber-reinforced composites is still far from complete, and there are still many further studies and research areas that could be explored in the future. Design/methodology/approach The paper starts with an overview of the current scenario of the composite manufacturing industry and then the problems of advanced composite materials are pointed out, followed by an introduction of biocomposites. The main body of the paper covers literature reviews of recently emerged 3D printing technologies that were applied to biofiber-reinforced composite materials. This part is classified into subsections based on the form of the starting materials used in the 3D printing process. A comprehensive conclusion is drawn at the end of the paper summarizing the findings by the authors. Findings Most of the biofiber-reinforced 3D-printed products exhibited improved mechanical properties than products printed using pure resin, indicating that biofibers are good replacements for synthetic ones. However, synthetic fibers are far from being completely replaced by biofibers due to several of their disadvantages including higher moisture absorbance, lower thermal stability and mechanical properties. Many studies are being performed to solve these problems, yet there are still some 3D printing technologies in which research concerning biofiber-reinforced composite parts is quite limited. This paper unveils potential research directions that would further develop 3D printing in a sustainable manner. Originality/value This paper is a summary of attempts to use biofibers as reinforcements together with different resin systems as the starting material for 3D printing processes, and most of the currently available 3D printing techniques are included herein. All of these attempts are solutions to some principal problems with current 3D printing processes such as the limit in the variety of materials and the poor mechanical performance of 3D printed parts. Various types of biofibers are involved in these studies. This paper unveils potential research directions that would further widen the use of biofibers in 3D printing in a sustainable manner.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Kessler ◽  
R Hickel ◽  
M Reymus

SUMMARY Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a rapidly developing technology that has gained widespread acceptance in dentistry. Compared to conventional (lost-wax technique) and subtractive computer numeric controlled methods, 3D printing offers process engineering advantages. Materials such as plastics, metals, and ceramics can be manufactured using various techniques. 3D printing was introduced over three decades ago. Today, it is experiencing rapid development due to the expiration of many patents and is often described as the key technology of the next industrial revolution. The transition to its clinical application in dentistry is highly dependent on the available materials, which must not only provide the required accuracy but also the necessary biological and physical properties. The aim of this work is to provide an up-to-date overview of the different printing techniques: stereolithography, digital light processing, photopolymer jetting, material jetting, binder jetting, selective laser sintering, selective laser melting, and fused filament fabrication. Additionally, particular attention is paid to the materials used in dentistry and their clinical application.


Pharmaceutics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad A. Azad ◽  
Deborah Olawuni ◽  
Georgia Kimbell ◽  
Abu Zayed Md Badruddoza ◽  
Md. Shahadat Hossain ◽  
...  

Three dimensional (3D) printing as an advanced manufacturing technology is progressing to be established in the pharmaceutical industry to overcome the traditional manufacturing regime of 'one size fits for all'. Using 3D printing, it is possible to design and develop complex dosage forms that can be suitable for tuning drug release. Polymers are the key materials that are necessary for 3D printing. Among all 3D printing processes, extrusion-based (both fused deposition modeling (FDM) and pressure-assisted microsyringe (PAM)) 3D printing is well researched for pharmaceutical manufacturing. It is important to understand which polymers are suitable for extrusion-based 3D printing of pharmaceuticals and how their properties, as well as the behavior of polymer–active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) combinations, impact the printing process. Especially, understanding the rheology of the polymer and API–polymer mixtures is necessary for successful 3D printing of dosage forms or printed structures. This review has summarized a holistic materials–process perspective for polymers on extrusion-based 3D printing. The main focus herein will be both FDM and PAM 3D printing processes. It elaborates the discussion on the comparison of 3D printing with the traditional direct compression process, the necessity of rheology, and the characterization techniques required for the printed structure, drug, and excipients. The current technological challenges, regulatory aspects, and the direction toward which the technology is moving, especially for personalized pharmaceuticals and multi-drug printing, are also briefly discussed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 96 (7) ◽  
pp. 228-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Whitaker

On 8 August 1984, Charles W ‘Chuck’ Hull filed US patent number US4575330 A, for Apparatus for production of three-dimensional objects by stereolithography. 1 Chuck’s apparatus was, in effect, the world’s first 3D printer.


Author(s):  
Enrico Ferrari ◽  
Michele Gallo ◽  
Changtian Wang ◽  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Maurizio Taramasso ◽  
...  

Abstract Three-dimensional (3D)-printing technologies in cardiovascular surgery have provided a new way to tailor surgical and percutaneous treatments. Digital information from standard cardiac imaging is integrated into physical 3D models for an accurate spatial visualization of anatomical details. We reviewed the available literature and analysed the different printing technologies, the required procedural steps for 3D prototyping, the used cardiac imaging, the available materials and the clinical implications. We have highlighted different materials used to replicate aortic and mitral valves, vessels and myocardial properties. 3D printing allows a heuristic approach to investigate complex cardiovascular diseases, and it is a unique patient-specific technology providing enhanced understanding and tactile representation of cardiovascular anatomies for the procedural planning and decision-making process. 3D printing may also be used for medical education and surgical/transcatheter training. Communication between doctors and patients can also benefit from 3D models by improving the patient understanding of pathologies. Furthermore, medical device development and testing can be performed with rapid 3D prototyping. Additionally, widespread application of 3D printing in the cardiovascular field combined with tissue engineering will pave the way to 3D-bioprinted tissues for regenerative medicinal applications and 3D-printed organs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-200
Author(s):  
N.K. Tolochko ◽  

It is problematic to apply traditional microtechnologies for the manufacturing three-dimensional (3D) components of microsystems due to a number of inherent disadvantages. It is much more promising to use additive technologies for these purposes. In present paper various additive technologies used for manufacturing non-electronic components of microsystems as well as various non-electronic components manufactured using these technologies are considered. The peculiarities of the implementation of additive technologies in the manufacture of non-electronic microcomponents are discussed. More than 20 types of additive technologies characterized by different principles for the implementation of 3D printing processes are presented and their brief description is given. Most of these technologies allow manufacturing the components with micrometer feature sizes and some of them — with nanometer feature sizes. Microcomponents produced by additive technologies are intended for use in micromechanics, microoptics and microfluidics. Many examples of such microcomponents are given with indication of their typical feature sizes. Additive technologies make it possible to create both individual parts of microdevices and completely finished micro-devices. Microcomponents are mainly made from photopolymers and thermoplastics, as well as metals. Among additive technologies those that provide the multi-material 3D printing as well as the embedding of discrete components into printed microdevices are especially promising. It is expected that in near future additive technologies will be widely used in the production of various non-electronic components of microsystems.


Author(s):  
Alexander Rompas ◽  
Charalampos Tsirmpas ◽  
Ianos Papatheodorou ◽  
Georgia Koutsouri ◽  
Dimitris Koutsouris

3D printing is about being able to print any object layer by layer. But if one questions this proposition, can one find any three-dimensional objects that can't be printed layer by layer? To banish any disbeliefs the authors walked together through the mathematics that prove 3d printing is feasible for any real life object. 3d printers create three-dimensional objects by building them up layer by layer. The current generation of 3d printers typically requires input from a CAD program in the form of an STL file, which defines a shape by a list of triangle vertices. The vast majority of 3d printers use two techniques, FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) and PBP (Powder Binder Printing). One advanced form of 3d printing that has been an area of increasing scientific interest the recent years is bioprinting. Cell printers utilizing techniques similar to FDM were developed for bioprinting. These printers give us the ability to place cells in positions that mimic their respective positions in organs. Finally, through a series of case studies the authors show that 3d printers have made a massive breakthrough in medicine lately.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gideon Ukpai ◽  
Joseph Sahyoun ◽  
Robert Stuart ◽  
Sky Wang ◽  
Zichen Xiao ◽  
...  

While three-dimensional (3D) printing of biological matter is of increasing interest, current linear 3D printing processes lack the efficiency at scale required to mass manufacture products made of biological matter. This paper introduces a device for a newly developed parallel additive manufacturing technology for production of 3D objects, which addresses the need for faster, industrial scale additive manufacturing methods. The technology uses multilayer cryolithography (MLCL) to make biological products faster and in larger quantities by simultaneously printing two-dimensional (2D) layers in parallel and assembling the layers into a 3D structure at an assembly site, instead of sequentially and linearly assembling a 3D object from individual elements as in conventional 3D printing. The technique uses freezing to bind the 2D layers together into a 3D object. This paper describes the basic principles of MLCL and demonstrates the technology with a new device used to manufacture a very simple product that could be used for tissue engineering, as an example. An evaluation of the interlayer bonding shows that a continuous and coherent structure can be made from the assembly of distinct layers using MLCL.


Author(s):  
Saigopal Nelaturi ◽  
Walter Kim ◽  
Arvind Rangarajan ◽  
Tolga Kurtoglu

Additive manufacturing, or 3d printing, is the process of building three dimensional solid shapes by accumulating material laid out in sectional layers. Additive manufacturing has been recognized for enabling production of complex custom parts that are difficult to manufacture otherwise. However, the dependence on build orientation and physical limitations of printing processes invariably lead to geometric deviations between manufactured and designed shapes that are usually evaluated after manufacture. In this paper, we formalize the measurement of such deviations in terms of a printability map that simulates the printing process and partitions each printed layer into disjoint regions with distinct local measures of size. We show that manufacturing capabilities such as printing resolution, and material specific design recommendations such as minimal feature sizes may be coupled in the printability map to evaluate expected deviations before manufacture. Furthermore, we demonstrate how partitions with size measures below required resolutions may be modified using properties of the medial axis transform, and use the corrected printability map to construct a representation of the manufactured model. We conclude by discussing several applications of the printability map for additive manufacturing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (02) ◽  
pp. 72-78
Author(s):  
Mohamed Mahmoud Abdul-Monem

AbstractBiocompatibility of materials used in dental and biomaterials applications is very important and depends on the components of these materials. Photopolymerized materials for dental and biomaterials applications have been progressively used since the 1970s. One of the crucial components in these materials is the photoinitiator (PI) that initiates the polymerization reaction. Synthetic PIs are the most commonly used types, but owing to their drawbacks such as cytotoxicity, insolubility in water, and high cost, research on naturally derived (bio-sourced) PIs is growing, to find an alternative to these synthetic types, especially in the growing field of three-dimensional (3D) printing and bioprinting of biomaterials for tissue engineering applications. Naturally derived PIs are biocompatible, highly water-soluble, and abundant. Naturally derived PIs have been used to prepare experimental dentine bonding agents, dentine primers, photo-crosslinked hydrogels for tissue engineering applications, antibacterial coatings, guided tissue regeneration membranes, and 3D printed biomaterials. An electronic search was done using MEDLINE/PubMed and Scopus databases using the keywords naturally derived, bio-sourced, PIs, dental, biomaterials, 3D printing, and 3D bioprinting, to review potential naturally derived PIs for dental and biomaterials applications. There are a variety of naturally derived PIs with various colors and absorption spectra to choose from, according to the intended application. Most of naturally derived PIs can be used with modern conventional dental light curing units, making them applicable for experimental studies for potential dental and biomaterials applications. Due to their biocompatibility and availability it is expected that in the upcoming years, research on naturally derived PIs and their dental and biomaterials applications will increase especially in the growing field of 3D bioprinting in which cell viability is essential; thus this review was done.


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